The Annual Birdfair at Egleton, Rutland Water Nature Reserve has come and gone once more. The largest Nature event on the planet often described as the Birdwatchers Glastonbury is a very special place to be amongst like minded people from all over the globe.
This is the second year South West Peregrine have been able to showcase and share some of the field study and research work that the group has been up to. Sharing this work with other similar groups and the general public is core to the group’s philosophy and this year was no exception.
Much interest was generated last year, with the South Devon birds that reared and fledged 3 Herring gull chicks, this year we had our work cut out to find anything on that scale. However, we did bring the events from a ledge showing interacting behaviours between adult birds as the pair bonding grows stronger in the months leading up to the breeding season. This also included some wonderful close up shots of both birds; along with night time shots where the birds have visited the ledge in near pitch darkness in search of a meal.
We were able to display the events of ringing young eyasses on the ledge at numerous Cornish Eyries,thanks to Dale Jackson’s head Cam footage from earlier in the year. Some people said watching this was indeed quite different to Urban peregrines and just watching the climbs made them feel a little queasy.
We had an exclusive update on the Co-operative attacks on Buteo buteo by the #Urban Peregrines of Exeter thanks to Co-authors Nick Dixon and Andrew Gibbs and with the kind permission of Devon Birds, with the publication only being released the week prior to Birdfair. Many Peregrine people stopped by to read the latest events of this aggressive falcon.
The group had produced two short videos for the Hawk and Owl Trust, one in support of the Adopt a Box scheme, where we had sited a Kestrel box in the Cornish Countryside and look forward to the results and opportunities to learn more about this smaller falcon species over the coming years. The second was a Short video shot by Luke Curno on the Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) both of which were well received by the large number of visitors to the stand.
Thanks must firstly be given to the Hawk and Owl Trust for their continued support to ‘South West Peregrine’ and once again giving us the opportunity to share our work with the general public.
We would like to thank Mike Nash and the team at Handykam for their help on a number of small projects this year, without whom we would be unable to keep up to date with some of the latest technologies available.
Thanks to Dave Scott who has supported our work over the past few years and of which one of his fabulous limited edition signed prints was the raffle prize this year, which helps to raise funds to keep us out in the field.
If you have not yet experienced Birdfair it must go on your list. A social gathering of Naturalist and Birdwatchers, with something for every age group. A year to go to Birdfair 28 – we look forward to being there once again.
A Pilgrim's Tail 